I can trace my paternal heritage back a few hundred years, and it stops with this little island, merged with that other little island, Eire.

This beer pours a solid black, with slight cola edges, and one skinny finger of foamy milk chocolate brown head, which settles quickly, leaving some random specked streaks of lace around the glass in the process. It smells of sweet caramel malt, milk, fermented red grape juice, and leafy hops. The taste is stale cider-soaked bready malt, yeast, warm milk, and a little bit of chocolate coffee. The carbonation is very sedate, but with a weird little tongue tingling after a spell, the body medium weight, but in a squishy fruit manner, smoothness defined in an equal manner. It finishes with an airiness, aged black fruit dancing about, tartness coming and going.

Well, a strange old bat, this one. Stout characteristics get pushed aside in favour of weird amber ale off-flavours. Could be an age issue – as there's no date info on the bottle, but then again, maybe it's just that I’ve never had a Mediterranean milk stout before.

Despite a rather vigorous pour, only enough head was generated to barely cover the top, and this disappeared rapidly. A very dark brown liquid, a bit hazy, with a tan head.

Aroma: a spicy smell (hops?) of hops and malt. Smells sweet.

Tastes sweet too, at first, giving the initial but momentary impression of being way too sweet. but then some bittering hops kick in towards the finish to provide a good sweet/bitter balance. Nice flavor effect, even if the flavor is not good until the finish.

M: under carbonated and a tad watery.

O - an interesting brew worth seeking out as a novelty. A bit different from other milk stouts I've tried. Good dessert beer.

A- The dark dense black body lets a soft glow of brown in at the base. There is a thin bubbly tan head that is gone before the first sip. The beer is a bit too dense to see any sign of carbonation.

S- The soft soapy aroma has some cola qualities to it but no roasted malt noticed.

T- The slightly tart flavor has some cherry qualities to it with a watery cola note to follow and a roasted malt note hint at the finish.

M- The light mouthfeel is slightly watery in texture with no alcohol heat noticed.

O- After pouring the glass, I read "with caramel color" on the label. It made me nervous that someone would actually advertise that. I would call this a diet stout, it is thin and watery with very little flavor. It was a let down.

Yikes, this one was a little off... I really thought this one sounded good from the look of the bottle and everything. Don't judge the book by its cover, surprisingly this just tasted really bad. The look of it is fine even the aroma is pretty nice but the taste is just not the greatest at all. This brew is not worth the money in my opinion.

i guess you have to know how to pour a stout to get it to show it's potential. pretty active dark cocoa nib head stays lively, lacing nicely and thick with a large sudsy, tight island remaining for some time.

nose is a slightly sharp sweetness, dried dark fruit, vanilla. for an incredibly low ABV, this smells a bit like a liqueur. interesting.

i see alot of poor reviews but trying to keep it objective.

yeah, there's the average (or less?!) aspect...something not melded here...interesting in that it would be perhaps a really refreshing deep summer dark brew...not bad at all (at first), but mouthfeel is very thin, finish is too dry and fast...the flavor is actually full-bodied for a split second, but it fades and seems imbalanced. the sweetness would actually make this not as enjoyable and just cloying had it lingered. so there's something positive. don't let it warm up!

in a sense, a drinkable brew, but for it's price (!) and low ABV, i don't know.

dark yes, but artificially, and with a head that faded all too quickly... smells of spent grain, old leather and cheap tobacco... rather watery, with metallic notes and roasted hay... light fizzy body, with a metallic tone that wouldn't go away... part of a random beer grab from my dad as a christmas gift, but i don't know if i can finish this one

11.2oz bottle given to me gratis by the proprietor of Enoteca in Post Falls, Idaho. I got the impression that he was not sure if he wanted to try it or not, so he wanted me to be the guinea pig! Normally this goes for $2.99. According to the label, this is a "milk stout with caramel color added." I'm a little bit puzzled as to why caramel coloring would have to be added to a stout. Whenever food coloring or artificial flavor is trumpeted from a beer's label, I generally get worried. Also, the label declares that the beer was "prepared [not brewed] according to the original recipe of 1946." Somehow it's not as impressive as the standard Reinheitsgebot boilerplate found on beers from Germany. Oh, well, if nothing else I'll have had a beer from Malta for the first time.

Pours a somewhat bizzare looking reddish brown (the vaunted caramel coloring, I guess), with a very small, tight tan head. Small amounts of spotty lace can be seen on the sides of my glass.

Whoa! When tasted, this beer somehow gets fruity - and not in a good way. Apple flavors with an acidic undertone. It doesn't improve as it gets warmer, either. No stout characteristics come through in the taste. Ugh.

Light bodied for a stout, and with a dry, biting mouthfeel.

Nasty, nasty, nasty. I hate to diss something given to me freely, but this is a drainpour, pure and simple, and my plumbing will not thank me for it. Avoid.

Bought this one because it was on sale for very cheap at Binny's and I'm always up for a sweet stout. It pours solid black with a one finger khaki head dying down almost immediately to a ring and island with decent lacing. On the nose it's a strange combination of breakfast notes, milk, maybe some oatmeal, maybe some blackberry. This is the first sweet stout I've had that actually smells like milk. On the tongue there is an upfront milk taste, with some note that's reminiscent of cheap tawny port coming after. It's quite sweet, bordering on unpleasantly so. In the mouth it's rather thin but sticky. Given the sweetness and overall not-that-goodness of this beer I can't see drinking it often, or really ever again. Worth a try, especially at the price, but that's about it.

Another surprise international find at the Binny's in Algonquin. It pours a straight onyx topped by at best a half-finger of khaki foam. The nose is kinda weak, with some faint light roasted malts and rain-drenched greens finding their way into the 'strils. The taste is also primarily composed of light roasted malts, with some watered-down coffee and light leather rounding things out. Nowhere is there any real semblance of "lacto" sweetness or even any confident or self-assured flavors. The body is a heavy medium, with a light carbonation and a watery finish. Overall, an honestly sad milk stout, not really good enough for milk steak (that made sense in my full-on-rapist head). It's drinkable enough, but the flat flavors really detract from the proceedings.

This was an interesting brew. Got it into the store, because I was interested in it due to the fact that it's from Malta, a small island off of Italy which was once inhabited and controlled by the British. However, once the British left, Farson's came out with its very one Farson's Lacto Milk Stout.

Smells like dried lactose straight out the bag and milk chocolate. I do like milk chocolate.

Fruity up front like an English pale ale before the smooth milk chocolate kicks in. Slick caramel. Maybe Lacto and I got off on the wrong food with the whole "caramel color added" thing, but this beer taste artificial--like some one took a Kool-aid milk stout package and added water.

Nice and inky black through which no light passes when held to a lamp. Rather assertive pour yields only about a finger thick light brown head. Not a bad looking stout.Smell is certainly sweet with dark malts and a bit of lactic acidity deep down, but you can definitely smell it. Smells about like I'd expect it to.Taste, too, it about what I would expect, except the sweetness seems a bit assertive, even considering the style. Really sweet, dark roasted malts dominate the flavour with the lactic acidity making an appearance in the flavour, as well. This isn't a terrible Milk Stout, but the sweetness and exceptionally thin mouthfeel simply aren't for me. I like a stout to be big, thick, chewy, and heavy and this one is none of those things. Still, this was certainly an interesting beer and highly drinkable at 3,4% if the sweetness doesn't bother you.

Pours a dark brown, near black. A fairly brisk pour yielded only about 1 finger thick of brown head. Head is bubbly and almost kind of creamy looking. Head came across as a bit lacking in general. mild lacing.

Aroma and taste are down right mediocre. Malt and...maybe caramel? Perhaps a slight bit of brown sugar in the nose. But no hints of coffee, chocolate, hops...nothing. Just a bland sweetness. Yuck. But hey, at least it's not cloying.

Mouthfeel is fairly light for the style...maybe a notch below medium overall. Watery. Carbonation is appropriate.

Not a good stout. Might be a decent entry stout for a person that's a bit intidimated by the style, because there's nothing even remotely challenging at play here. This was a drain pour for me - not because it was so bad that I couldn't drink it, but simply because it was just a waste of stomach space.

Nose has a European feel to it, I think it's the yeast. Chocolatey and milky, maybe a hint of licorice and raisin with a fruity yeast note lying underneath.

The palate is where it fell apart for me. Starts out chalky and metallic, which I have to say faded into a better mouthfeel later on. Suprisingly fruity with stout notes only in the background. Finishes chocolatey and dry.

Once it opened up it got substancially better and very drinkable. In the meantime though, i'm in no hurry to pick up more.

This is a wonderful, highly drinkable stout, packing a lot of flavour and character into a very low ABV.

Essentially, but not quite, black, it has some dark red-brown light at the bottom. It has a medium-large brown head steadily shrinking to a foamy ring and wispy top. It leaves some nice rings of lace.

The aroma is full-bodied but light, with mineral, brown sugar, caramelised prunes, dried figs, brown bread. It is very pleasant.

The taste is similar, light in body and feel, light on the toungue, yet with plenty of flaovur, engaging compliexuity, and sweet but not too sweet. Up front, it has fermented, lightly caramelised prunes, lightly sweet brown bread with brown sugar, drying to light, drier toasty-woody-leafy finish with mineral and hints of spices and plum wine. This morphs into a long, light aftertaste of sweet brown bread, toasty leaves. The dryish, light finish, balances out the sweetness nicely in the absence of bitterness. It's light and lively, not oily but not watery, either, and has a nice consistent feel that beautifully balances lightness with full feel and character.

This makes for a nice, engaging, light, and very easy-drinking beer that gives you a lot for the alcohol. Keep in mind that this is a lighter, traditional "restorative"-type beer, not the heavy-duty, high-ABV sweet stouts some now make to satisfy drinkers of imperial stouts, etc.

A - This beer poured a cola brown color that produced a tan head which had little retention and laced the side of the glass little

S - The aromas produced by this beer, wait, what aromas? This "Stout" as its called is very lacking

T - Ok, I had to double check and make sure I was drinking a Milk Stout and not a bottle of Root Beer, but to my dismay this was labeled as a Milk Stout

M - The mouthfeel of this beer had a light body with a heavy amount of carbonation, which reinforced the whole cola taste

D - I can't say good things about this beer, I bought this because I saw Caramel next Milk Stout and thought "Sweet, a Caramel flavored Milk Stout, what a badass combination," but I didn't read fully, and suffered the consequences

Pours a three finger white head that fades quickly to a ring leaving a little lace. Black color no highlights. Malty almost root beer nose. Light carbonation and light bodied. Flavor is sweet that wants to be a milk stout, some caramel and almost a watery finish. $2.49 for a 330ml bottle from Manchester Wine and Liquors Manchester, CT.